Path of the Ancients: Space Time Illusion

Prologue

Satya Yuga

||Nasadiya Suktam – Rig Veda||

nāsa̍dāsī̱nno sadā̍sītta̱dānī̱m nāsī̱drajo̱ no vyo̍mā pa̱ro yat |

kimāva̍rīva̱ḥ kuha̱ kasya̱ śarma̱nnaṁbha̱ḥ kimā̍sī̱dgaha̍naṁ gabhī̱ram ||1||

Then, neither the non-existent nor the existent existed. Neither the space nor ether existed. Beyond what and within what was borne? Where and under whose protection was the power? How this existed is an inexplicable mystery.

The field was all set to be experimented with. The interferences were highly resilient and it needed agility and adroitness to overcome. Coherence was not easy coming, yet it was accomplished. A pure interference free field to start the experiment with.

Se-er Kah took little pleasure in his monumental achievement. This had been a sticky problem. It had them stumped until he had stumbled upon something, quite by accident, ostensibly ancient. Who could have guessed that the wealth of knowledge he had found was ancient!! Yet the solution was present there innocently. It was a strange idea. But, what if it were really true? He would come back to it.

This experiment, he knew was just beginning. Other Brahmarshis needed to be involved at this stage. As he realized this he perceived Se-er Ishana and Se-er Vipra.

"Why do you need us?! " then perceiving Se-er Ishana’s excitement, Se-er Vipra became excited himself, "You did not? Was the ancient knowledge really helpful?".

"Vipra, Ishana. Just the Brahmarshis I need. Yes, it was as it said. Let’s hope no interferences are introduced as yet".

Se-er Ishana ran through the subsequent steps "Let’s see, we introduce a controlled-weak-interference to start a cycle, once a continuous cycle is established and self-sustained we stop the interference. We need to ensure the continued harmony of the underlying field throughout the experiment. Now, do we want to add any more barriers or shall we just keep it totally un-restricted?"

Se-er Kah did not flinch, "Let’s run it without any barriers save the one." Se-er Ishana commented "You are convinced aren’t you?" Se-er Kah was confident, "Be ready to be surprised my friend".

Se-er Ishana grinned, "Let’s begin then. Let’s see what the experiment has to say... Vipra, are you ready?".

Year 2030 AD, Kali Yuga, vCognizer

||Shankara on Kena Upanishad||

asti kimapi vidvadbuddhigamyaṃ sarvāntaratamaṃ kūṭasthaṃ ajaṃ ajaraṃ amṛtaṃ abhayaṃ śrotrāderapi, śrotrādi, tatsāmarthyanimittaṃ —

There exists a changeless reality at the innermost core of man, unborn, ageless, deathless, and fearless, which expresses itself through the functions of the ear and other sense-organs, being the one source of all their diverse energies.

It was not going as expected. It had been a long day and Anadi was tired. This had been the second meeting with his investors within a month. A number of questions were asked, mostly related to how much longer?, When will it be market ready?, When can we start seeing the profits?. None of the natural wonder or curiosity was present. No questions such as, Has it really achieved what you say, What does this imply to our lives?, Will life remain the same again?. There was none of the appreciation of the technology, excitement for the novelty, thirst for knowledge, curiosity as to the impact. Money always ruled supreme. Anadi thought bitterly All they wanted to see the 1000X returns on their investment. As a civilization we had failed ourselves trying to just look at money and profits.

The team had passed the nascent stage of researching the idea sometime back. Those were days of despair when they were not sure it would work. Now at least the team had started to believe it is achievable. It had been a tough fight to get the scientists to believe and sign up to research, design and productize the idea. There had been days when he was not sure himself. But, the team was top notch and they had progressed well beyond even his wildest imaginations and now they were nearly there. He still remembered that day, 10 years back when he had got the idea.

His obsession had started with his usual evening walk with his nine-year-old daughter. They had taken their usual route around a small hill, up and down the hill. It had been a clear summer day and the sunset was unusually stunning, the bright reddish orange orb in the sky descending slowly behind the trees and the buildings on a clear bluish sky with wisps of white clouds scattered around.

Can I have your phone, Dad? I want to take a photo. This is mesmerizing. asked his excited daughter, Kalki.

He knew very well no amount of photos or videos would capture the rapture of the moment. Yet he had handed over her phone to her. She was too young to become cynical. He wanted to encourage her wonder for small things.

Why am I not able to capture the reddish-orange glow Dad? Every time I click, the sun is a bright white orb in the photo? whined his daughter as she tried to fiddle around with the various options in the camera to capture as perfect a picture as possible.

If only pictures and words could capture the beauty of the world around us!! He could have easily dismissed it with that philosophical view. Yet that simple often repeated sentence had got him thinking. Once the train of thoughts had started he could not stop it. He had thought about how in spite of all the technological advancements the very simple act of recreating a moment was still not possible by mankind. It was strange that we lived in a world where companies were running behind creating NEW artificially induced virtual reality experience but no one could record a real-life experience and replay it in a virtual reality environment with exactly the same precision and experience.

Everyone seemed to think that recording the visual sights, the movements or capturing the visible and sense-able parameters such as audio & video and re-playing them was enough to recreate an experience. Most research and technologies were involved in making audio & video more refined. 3D enabled, holographic views, iMAX cinematic recordings, recording 360 degree views and projecting them into VR cardboards, or projecting on pre-setup theatres to give 3D and 4D experiences. There had been researches on augmented reality also where artificial sensory perceptions were projected onto the environment. Yet, once a moment of experience in the real world had passed, it cannot be recreated with the same accuracy and precision.

That was when a germ of an idea had formed and had evolved into the vCognizer. What was it that he was interested in, then? Yes, brain waves and brain wave entrainment. Frequency of the brain waves that determines the state of one’s mind or was it the state of one’s mind dictated the frequency of brain waves. Sure, there have been various claims of creating brain wave entrainment software using binaural beats / isochronic beats, visual + audio illusions that help you alter your brain wave. There were also electro-physiology studies that showed that the brain is in short just a bio-electric circuit responding to external and internal EMF. There had been tDCS (Transcranial Direct Current Simulation), tACS (Transcranial Alternating Current simulation), TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Simulation) methods claiming to be able to influence the brain to prevent conditions such as epilepsy and depression. But no one had tried to utilize them to record and re-create a moment in a person’s life.

It had given him an idea and he realized he needed help to research, validate and create a product using the idea. He needed money and lots of it, an infinite network of scientists and engineers from various fields of study. Electro-physiology was just starting to pick up momentum then, but was more in the research and education circles rather than in the corporate circles and none of the ideas were taken seriously. Doctors were issuing warning against tDCS all over the place stating the effects of unduly influencing the brain.

By the time they were back from their walk, he had got a small plan formulated in his head, as to how to take his idea further. He had proceeded to put it into roll, gathering the right people from his contacts, exciting the right investors and inspiring a number of scientists to buy into his idea. Here he was, after 10 years, close to completing his dream, The vCognizer. He took a big sigh and called it a day. They had big plans for testing The vCognizer tomorrow. He needed his rest to clear his head.

Year 2030, Kali Yuga, The Test

||Advaita Prakarana||

graho na tatra notsargaścintā yatra na vidyate |

ātmasaṃsthaṃ tadā jñānamajāti samatāṃ gatam || 38 ||

Free from all acts of the mind with neither an idea of acceptance nor an idea of giving up,

knowledge established in itself attains the state of changelessness

Good Morning, Anadi. So, how did your meeting go yesterday? asked Vijay as he walked into the office the next day. Vijay was a neuroscientist critical to his project as all the other members of his team.

He remembered with a chuckle the day he had talked to Vijay about his idea and the project that he wanted to embark upon. Vijay had been very skeptical, even though at that time his own experiments had been bordering on controversial theories. Yet, once his interest had been roused there was no keeping him away from the intriguing project.

Same as usual, not so good. They wanted to know when we are going to launch it. How’s the preparation for the test coming along? Ready to be tested?

Definition of what an experience is? had been a tricky thing. It had gone through a number of iterations and pivots before they could get onto the right track. Initially they had thought that experience when correctly defined, would turn out to be the same for all subjects involved in the same episode. It took them sometime to understand, accept and prove that a concept of Global Experience or Global truth did not exist.

Expressing experience as a set of abridged, measurable parameters had been even tougher. The idea initially was to measure the resting electrical and magnetic states of the billions of neurons in the brain and the subsequent changes in the electrical and magnetic states of the neurons as the brain goes through the process of experiencing an episode.

Recording the magnetic state of the brain was not a new idea. The fMRI did this. There were obvious problems to using this method. One, the magnetic field required was pretty high and the speed of recording was very slow, not to mention that the experience itself changed due to the presence of all these fields and machines around the experiencer. Electrical activity recording was advanced with the advent of various brain sensing headbands that recorded electrical activity using calibrated sensors. Yet these only recorded specific locations as opposed to the electrical state of all neurons in the brain.

While these were just setbacks, they could be researched and solutions found and miniaturized, they realized a more pertinent question to be answered was that which no one had questioned till now. Can the electrical and magnetic states of the neurons be stimulated to the very same state and sequence as they occurred during the recording and will the brain experience the same episode again with the same set of reactions?

The replaying of the recorded experience was definitely turning to be a very challenging problem. The key was that the experience needed to be re-experienced in the same level of detail as the first time. This was hitting a number of fundamental problems. The research had been a long path. After overcoming huge obstacles, here they were with a workable prototype which they had to test.

For lack of volunteers and still more the lack of trust, they were testing their theories and ideas on themselves. While in the beginning this had some embarrassing, funny and tense moments, it seemed to have worked out somehow. Yet, this, was a very precarious and perilous test. Any or all things could go wrong. So Anadi had volunteered to test it on himself first. It did seem very daunting to allow someone to mess with his brain, but his policy was eat your own dog food.

Vijay’s concern was visible on his face. Yet he joked around as usual Are you sure you want to try this? You do know I may decide to add new memories when restoring back the memory.

I think I will take my chance with that rather than face the investors again with a negative answer joked Anadi. Where are the others? he asked.

They are in the lab all set waiting for you. Let’s go there. You are 100% sure about this right? said Vijay. Anadi understood his concern and he was also very apprehensive. But having come this far he was not ready to give up.

200%. Let’s get on with it. Someone has to take the risk and who better than the originator of the idea. They had reached the lab and Erik came forward with a baseball style helmet